On October 22, LeBron and Bronny James became the first father-son duo to play in the NBA together. The 39-year-old superstar and his 20-year-old son shared playing time late in the first half of Bronny's NBA debut. It was an incredible moment for both Jameses and the league, but buried in the stats that night, a nerdier storyline was emerging. Despite winning the game by seven, the Lakers lost the 35 minutes LeBron played by six points. The key to the victory was the decisive 41-28 performance by Los Angeles in the 13 minutes when the elder James rested.
More on LeBron and the Lakers
Unfortunately for LeBron and the Lakers, the season has since followed a similar pattern. James has continued to hit milestones—including setting the NBA record for career minutes last week and averaging a preposterous 23 points, nine assists, and eight rebounds per game—but, for the first time in his career, his team has performed better when he rests than when he plays. A week short of LeBron’s 40th birthday, has Father Time finally caught up to him? Here are five key trends that illustrate why James’s effectiveness has diminished and how it’s impacting the Lakers.
On/Off Numbers
The chart below shows the on/off differentials of every James team dating back to his rookie season. As you can see, for 21 straight campaigns, his teams benefited from having him on the floor. Year 22 is a vastly different story.
Even as a rookie in 2003-04, the Cavs’ net rating was 2.2 points better when LeBron played compared to when he rested. On average, over the last 20-plus seasons of his career, Bron’s team’s net ratings have been over 10 points higher when plays versus when he rests.
These incredible markers became a steady hallmark of James’s value to his teams. During the 2015-16 season, for example, the Cavs posted a net rating of plus-11.7 with James on the floor and minus-4.3 when he was not. In that year’s Finals, the Warriors won the 44 minutes James rested 111-89, while the Cavs outscored the greatest regular-season team ever by 26 points in LeBron’s minutes to win the title.
That trend suddenly has inverted this year. This season’s Lakers have looked like a lottery team when James plays; when he rests they look like a playoff team. Here are the receipts, with the most glaring differences appearing on defense:
With LeBron ON the court:
- Net rating: minus-6.5 (which would rank 27th in the NBA)
- Offensive rating: 109.2 (would rank 26th)
- Defensive rating: 115.7 (would rank 25th)
With LeBron OFF the court:
- Net rating: plus-2.4 (would rank tied for 11th)
- Offensive rating: 108.5 (would rank 25th)
- Defensive rating: 106.1 (would rank third)
In LeBron’s minutes, Lakers opponents are beating them by an average of 6.5 points per 100 possessions.That deficit is unprecedented for James, and it doesn’t scream contender status—it screams lottery team.
Fewer Veggies in the Shot Diet
At his peak, James’s blend of size, strength, speed, and smarts enabled him to get to the rim and finish in traffic better than anyone else in pro basketball. He combined interior volume and efficiency better than anyone. During various seasons in the 2010s, he led the NBA in both points in the paint and fast-break points, though never both at the same time.
Naturally, as he nears 40, that downhill locomotive has lost some of its steam. James has never been less likely to get to the rim. He’s never been more likely to take a 3-pointer. The efficiency of his drives has plummeted. The leading paint scorer of the 21st century now trails players like Jalen Johnson and Jaren Jackson Jr. in points in the paint per game. Giannis Antetokounmpo has become what James once was: the league’s best paint scorer and its top transition force.
In his prime, James was simply the best fast-break threat in the NBA. In 2015-16, the first year the league tracked transition efficiency, James ranked sixth in transition opportunities, but his 1.32 points per possession ranked tied for first among the league’s top 25 most active transition players, outpacing other superstars like James Harden, Stephen Curry, and Antetokounmpo. James in the open floor was offensive efficiency in a can.
This season, his transition opportunities are yielding only 1.06 points per possession; only four teams in the whole league are averaging less than that collectively.
First-year coach JJ Redick has responded to some of these issues by featuring Anthony Davis more in his offense, but the Lakers have struggled to replace those easy transition buckets. That critical source of offense for this team—which was top-10 in transition frequency and efficiency each of the past two years, according to Cleaning the Glass—has largely evaporated, which is one major reason L.A.’s offense has underperformed overall.
This Version of LeBron Needs Help
The Lakers offense has been underwhelming regardless of who is playing. But lackluster offense isn’t new in Lakerland, it’s been the signature disappointment of James’s time in Los Angeles. Consider these two nuggets:
- In his last 10 seasons in the Eastern Conference, James’s teams rated in the top six in offensive efficiency every single year.
- In the six-plus years he's played in L.A., the Lakers have never achieved that. They have been a bottom-10 offense three different times.
For years, any team with James at the controls would thrive on offense thanks to his ability to pressure the rim and create clean looks for his teammates on the edges. The league’s all-time leading scorer also happens to be its all-time leader in 3-point assists for a reason: This dude is the best drive-and-kick machine pro basketball has ever seen.
There was a hypothetical that often bounced around in the middle of the 2010s as James powered his teams to eight consecutive Eastern Conference titles. If James were removed from the Heat or Cavs roster and placed on any other team in the conference, would that new team immediately become the favorite? Many of us answered that question in the affirmative—that’s how good this dude was. James was the league’s best player, night to night, trip by trip. Occasionality was not on the menu. Now it’s a matter of fact for the best 40-year-old hooper in NBA history.
In L.A., the most successful LeBron-era Lakers squads have relied on a different formula: elite defense on one end, and just enough offense from James and Davis on the other. But even compared to those teams, this year’s version is an outlier. After a hot start, the Lakers have ranked LAST in offense over their past 10 games, even worse than the Wizards! And on defense, well, it hasn’t been much better …
Transition Defense
Perhaps the most memorable play of James’s entire career is his heroic chasedown block on Andre Iguodala at the climax of the 2016 NBA Finals. It was a moment of clutch defensive brilliance that showcased his incredible athleticism, his competitive drive, and his undeniable claim to be the most complete open-court player in the world.
Eight years later, those moments are few and far between. It’s showtime once again in L.A., except this time it’s the opponents who are living on the break. This year’s Lakers squad has one of the worst transition defenses in the NBA. Multiple sources around the Lakers have expressed frustration with the team's defensive effort, especially after missed shots and turnovers. Getting back faster has become a point of emphasis.
When offense suddenly turns into defense, the Lakers are slow to transform. They rank 28th in the NBA by allowing 1.38 points per possession in transition, but that figure gets even worse with James in the game—it balloons up to 1.43, which would be the worst such mark in the league.
But when James is out, the Lakers allow just 1.26 points per transition possession, a mark that’s actually better than league average this season. That’s in line with the team’s broader defensive performance so far: When James rests, the Lakers have been a defensive juggernaut, holding opponents to just 106.1 points per 100 possessions. How great is that? Only two teams rank better than that figure overall: the Thunder and Rockets, the two most dominant defenses in the league.
However, in the 909 minutes James has played, the Lakers are allowing 115.7 points per 100, which would place them 25th in the association. Transition defense is a pain in the ass, especially at 39, and another manifestation of age is that James's effort on defense has gone from reliable to occasional, particularly on fast breaks.
The most glaring markers are in the nerdiest categories. According to defensive box score plus-minus, James has been a “negative” defender only twice in his 22 years: this season and his rookie season. He actually led the entire league in this metric in 2011-12, but those defensive talents he took to South Beach faded long before he arrived in Southern California.
Through the lens of the DARKO career model, a phenomenal nerd-resource created by Kostya Medvedovsky, James’s aging curve crested as he approached 30, and 10 years later his impact scores mirror those of early 20s, long before he became an NBA champion.
Inconsistency
Let’s give credit where credit is due: There are still nights when James is clearly the best player on the floor. On December 6, James racked up a 39-point triple-double versus Atlanta, and added a signature chasedown block in overtime that should’ve won the game for the Lakers, but Davis fumbled the ball twice in the game’s final 30 seconds, and Atlanta stole the victory late. LeBron missed the next two games because of foot soreness but has played 34 minutes in all three games since.
The Lakers head into Christmas week winners of four of their last five games. They are 16-12, good enough for sixth place in the West. But there is little room for error. The 11th-place Suns are looming just 1.5 games back, and any kind of rough streak out West could be enough to drop L.A. into the play-in.
Consistency is a prerequisite for making the playoffs in the West, but there is a new occasionality to James’s greatness that wasn’t there before. He used to be the most reliable superstar on the planet, but at 39, variance has entered the chat, and that makes Redick’s job a lot harder.
Entering this season, James had scored at least 10 points in 1,222 consecutive games. That remarkable double-digit scoring streak is running on fumes. In an October loss versus Phoenix, it took a late-game 3 to keep it alive. Earlier this month, he shot 4-of-16 and managed only 10 points as Minnesota held the wobbly Lakers offense to just 80 total points.
There are more nights like this, but this should not surprise anyone. If he retired tomorrow, he would do so as the NBA’s all-time leader in both regular season minutes played and postseason minutes played.
The King’s odometer is in unprecedented territory. When Tim Duncan was 39 in his final season in the league, he played 61 games and averaged 25 minutes per contest. James is on pace to play 76 games and 35 minutes per game. At 39, James is playing more minutes than Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson, and those dudes start for Tom Thibodeau!
James entered the NBA in October 2003 as one of the most hyped 18-year-olds in basketball history. Twenty-one years later, it’s amazing that he not only delivered on the hype, but is also still playing so much and playing so well. Does he have enough in the tank to push one more team to a deep playoff run? Father Time will tell.
